‘Well suck my third nipple’
The notorious, same-named clique is back in a 2018 reboot. Heathers is based on the iconic original 1988 film, now made into a TV series – this time though, the Heathers are body-positive, gender-queer, and whatever other traits and identities a hasty Twitter timeline-dredge of teens could bring up, apparently.
Heather Chandler (Melanie Field), Heather Duke (Brendan Scannell) and Heather McNamara (Jasmine Matthews) are still the vain mean girls despite the reboot, and Veronic Sawyer (Grace Victoria Cox) and brooding boyfriend JD (James Scully) are still in the business of murder.
The original movie starred Winona Ryder and Christian Slater, as the couple driven into murdering the most popular girls in school.
The full-length trailer for the series features some similar moments of high school snark, and the updated version of Heather Chandler’s death scene. It’s got a car chase, iPhones and one of those popular-on-Instagram LED facemasks – just so you’re very clear it’s 2018. The original was filled with quotable, bitchy, angsty teen lines, and this one seems to be chasing that similar vibe. Whether it will be able to pull off the film’s pitch-black comedy, we’ll have to wait and see.
“The idea is that power corrupts and that everyone is at their core an asshole and concerned for themselves,” Scannell (one of the new Heathers) said, according to Uproxx. “In the movie, three beautiful women where wrecking havoc on the school; that was new and hadn’t been done before. Our modern retelling centres around marginalised communities – a plus-size, a black girl, and a queer – trashing everyone around them.”
Shannen Doherty, who was the original Heather Duke, makes a brief appearance in the clip (red bow and all). She’s set to appear in three episodes. Selma Blair also co-stars.
Watch the trailer below. The first episode debuts on Paramount Network March 6.